My 440 kit is in transit, somewhere between Chicago and Toronto.
It almost would have been worth driving to pick it up in Chicago -- I've done that drive in just over 6 hours, but that was when I was young, stupid and had a fast car. Now I am old, wise and drive a frakking minivan (no way I could have fit an arcade cabinet or a pinball in the Acura) and have to be content to wait for Canada Post to deliver my kit with a smile (the Canada Post guy loves hearing the details whenever he drops off a piece of arcade history, even though he is firmly ensconced in the middle of GenerationXBox).
So ... I need some sort of arcade-related project that will be quick to finish but keeps up the momentum.
I've been meaning to do a rebuild on the monitor in a bartop that I picked up at auction some years ago for $50. The lot was listed as "HARDWARE", which is auction-speak for "the damned thing is broken". It should have sold for $25, but I was late raising my card ... by about a half-second. It seemed like a crappy result, but I ended up with a "Starburst parking lot opportunity" to get my money back. Something, however, made me decline the offer and take the little cabinet home.
Lo and behold, the damned thing worked (once the appropriate wires were reconnected) AND it had a working Team Tetris board inside. BONUS!
I cleaned it up, repainted the trim, installed new vinyl on the control panel and put on some new T-Molding. It was a pretty little machine that I would be able to turn around for a quick sale and profit.
Then I installed the Rygar board that I had previously picked up on eBay as "UNTESTED", which is eBay-speak for "the damned thing is broken". Lo and behold, the damned thing worked and played AMAZING in that little cab (thanks to a nice Wico 8-way and buttons). My little bartop was going nowhere and was doomed to be a permanent addition to the game room.
I almost didn't notice the teensy, tiny little hula that was showing up on the monitor.
Well, the hula is now little less teensy, not so tiny and I have finally decided to get off of my butt and yank the chassis for a rebuild.
I tried to identify the chassis using Bob Roberts' What's My Monitor ? page, but it turns out that it is listed as Unknown 1. I broke out my magnifier and proceeded to assemble a list of caps to be replaced ... there are 40 FREAKING CAPS -- for a little 13" monitor!! I have a spare 13" WG that came out of my uncle's exercise equipment and is pristine, but it looks really nice on my testbench, so it's time for me to suck it up and just fix Unknown 1. I see lots of soldering in my future.
To make matters worse, there were a boatload of 315V 2.2u and 3.3u caps that I didn't have in stock (nor did I have suitable substitutes), so I had to place an order with Digikey, which arrived (as expected) 1 business day later (e.g. today), but with the wrong bloody B+ filter cap (capacitance is right, voltage is fine, but the damned pinout is wrong -- so I need to finesse the fit).
Here is a picture of the biggest capkit I have ever assembled:
This afternoon was consumed with swimming lessons for Gilby, so I have some RealWork(tm) to catch up on before I can turn my attention to such recreation.
Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling, chilling adventures in soldering!
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